SSTI Digest

Seven regional innovation cluster (RIC) initiatives have each been awarded $500,000 from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Although the SBA has yet to publish an official press release indicating the release of the 2019 Regional Innovation Cluster awardees, SSTI identified the awardees through other sources, such as USASpending.gov and a review of local news media. Read on for more information on the program’s awardees.

Two community colleges in Florida became the winners of the 2019 Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence, which recognizes high achievement and performance among America’s community colleges. Winners were Indian River State College (IRSC) ($350,000) in Fort Pierce, Florida, and Miami Dade College ($350,000) in Miami; Odessa College and Palo Alto College in Texas and Pierce College in Washington were named as Rising Stars ($100,000 each).

The Oakland-based Kapor Center, a nonprofit focused on leveling the playing field in tech, has announced the Tech Done Right (TDR) Challenge with funds from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. With an emphasis on growing opportunities for women and people of color in the sector, the challenge will fund organizations with innovative solutions to building diverse, inclusive, and thriving tech ecosystems. Awardees will receive one-time grants beginning at $100,000. The challenge is now open and accepting applications here, with a submission deadline of Tuesday, May 7.

While the overall Chinese economy may be facing a slowdown, the venture capital (VC) market continues to report strong growth and became the second largest VC market by total capital invested in 2018, according to a new report from PitchBook.

A recent article from Pew Charitable Trusts shows how routine evaluations can help states make tangible improvements to their tax incentives. According to Pew, 30 states now have laws requiring evaluation of the incentives, and recent examinations in several states included key components that helped to inform the results. When analyses started with an effort to determine the specific goals of each incentive, their effectiveness was more easily determined.

University-based economic development practitioners seeking to improve their relationships with urban areas have a new resource guide available to them, thanks to research from the Thriving Cities Lab at the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. The lab offers guidance for colleges and universities and in its Field Guide for Urban University-Community Partnerships, authors Joshua Yates and Michaela Accardi conduct three interrelated analyses.  First, their report looks at 100 urban colleges and universities with a focus on how they interact with their home cities. Second, they cluster universities into five-distinct groups based on the types of strategies and activities they employ related to community partnerships. Based on this analysis, the authors highlight best practices at universities across the country, with a focus on specific outcomes, challenges experienced, and lessons learned, and conclude with a stepwise framework to assist colleges and universities, as well as recommendations for practitioners to make the most of these findings.

Innovation initiatives are seeing increased funding in some states as legislatures across the country begin to finalize budget bills and other legislation. SSTI continues to monitor these developments and this week we cover budget bills in Idaho that saw small increases to the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) program, as well as increases in the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) and STEM Action Center, and new funding for a computer science initiative. South Dakota will see an increase in funding for the Governor’s Office of Economic Development and West Virginia passed bills creating an SBIR/STTR matching grant program, support for community and technical college tuition assistance, expansion of broadband service, and other innovation-related initiatives in its budget that passed earlier in March.

The U.S. unemployment rate is near its 50-year low, but the portion of the population in the labor force is also near a 40-year low.

Many people have noticed that the Opportunity Zones tax incentive, intended to encourage investments in economically-distressed areas, lacks the type of reporting requirements that could help determine the real impacts of the incentive. Kresge Foundation is one organization that has been concerned by this information gap and has been working to implement solutions. The ultimate impact of Kresge’s latest effort is to provide further investor incentives in exchange for reporting compliance.

This week, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced up to $70 million for a Clean Energy Manufacturing Innovation Institute to develop technologies that will advance U.S. manufacturing competitiveness, energy efficiency, and innovation. This institute will focus on early-stage research for advancing cybersecurity in energy efficient manufacturing.

A smattering of recent opinion polls and research papers looking to the future have revealed some grim perceptions about the economy and environment, but a more positive opinion of the role for science and technology (S&T) emerges.

If you are feeling that your money is not buying as much as it used to, that delinquent crime may be increasing as teenagers sit idle, that there is not enough focus on climate change or that corporate responsibility may be lacking, you may validate those feelings through the findings of several recently released research papers. SSTI received notice of the conclusions of five working papers that we thought we’d share.

The Trade War is increasing U.S prices, declines in real income.